title: Method for the measurement of phase retardation of any wave plate with high precision.
abstract: We present a measuring method for any wave plate retardation with fairly high precision that utilizes a laser frequency splitting technique. To avoid strong mode competition in measuring half and full wave plates, we use two separate methods: comparing adjacent longitudinal mode spacing, and phase offset with an additional quarter wave plate. Therefore any wave plate can be characterized by a single instrument, and no complicated experimental arrangement or data analysis is required. The performance of the system is demonstrated by determining the phase retardation of several samples to a precision and repeatability better than lambda/10(4); moreover, an error analysis is proposed.
authors.affiliation: The State Key Lab of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. liuwx04@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
authors.forename: Weixin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Shulian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang